figo-caricature

Illustrations for Danish sports newspaper Tips Bladet

Luis Figo caricatureZidane caricature

I had the privilege of working for the Danish sports and betting newspaper Tips Bladet a few years back. Most of my work was topical football cartoons of the time, which will no longer make any sense. Above are caricatures of Luis Figo while at Real Madrid, and Zinedine Zidane while at Juventus.

Tips Bladet were the main sports newspaper of Denmark and were a print newspaper. They are now only online. www.tipsbladet.dk

Football has always been a big part of my illustration work.

fc-copenhagen-illustration

Illustrations for F.C Copenhagen

Zuma F.C. Copenhagen

Sibusiso Zuma, the South African international footballer while playing for F.C. Copenhagen

I had the great privilege of working for F.C Copenhagen as an illustrator a few years back. The Copenhagen based Danish Superliga football team known as F.C. København, or just F.C.K in Danish, play at and own Parken the Danish National stadium.

I had a few caricatures in their match programme, and an assortment of other merchandising work. It was a ridiculously childish thrill to go into Parken for meetings. The prospect of  bumping into a footballer in the lift, or even the then manager, Roy Hodgson. Sadly Roy appears to have drifted out of football altogether now, and manages England.

You can take the man out of Scotland…

Press and Journal

Working as a cartoonist for the Press and Journal newspaper

Willie Miller Aberdeen F.C.

Cartoon for The Press and Journal. A wee hint of Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) in the brush work.

In the early nineties I worked for Aberdeen Journals’ Press and Journal newspaper as a layouter at their Lang Stracht headquarters in Aberdeen.

I was contributing cartoons to the Aberdeen f.c. fanzine The Northern Light at the same time. I eventually plucked up the courage to submit a couple of cartoons to The Press and Journal. It was a paper that sold 110,000 copies per day, six days a week back then. Covering the area from the Shetlands down to Dundee, and over to the Western Isles. The highest selling newspaper in the area, with an estimated readership of 220,000. The subs, the chief sub, the Assistant Editors, were nice but intimidating people – you wouldn’t want to mess with them.

Four hours after nervously offering two cartoons to the Chief Sub, I was holding a still warm from the presses copy of the P&J in my hand with one of my cartoons on the front page, and another on the all important back page (the football page).

The cartoons were topical and needed to fit in with that day’s news. A sharp learning curve in, coming up with material under pressure, drawing quickly, and accepting the random nature of what others considered funny (editors and sub-editors).

The Press and Journal doesn’t sell as many copies now as when my cartoons appeared. This may or may not be a coincidence.